Longing

by Espinosa, Maria

  “Your daughter and Tanya are lovers.”

  “I’m sure Rosa prefers men, but sometimes . . .” Her voice died. There was much more she wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come.

  “No, I think she prefers girls. She hates men. But Tanya feels slighted. Tanya feels that Rosa neglects her. So she’s brought another girl—the one in the dark sweater and slacks and blonde hair.”

  “Oh, this is all so complicated,” said Eleanor. They whirled towards the baby’s room, jostling against people.

  “All Aaron’s fault . . .” said Antonio, “that she prefers girls . . . what a bastard . . . it is what he failed to do . . . it is how he failed her . . . a con, your husband.”

  “Antonio, you’ve never met him! You have no idea who he is. I’m married to him, and I love him very much. . . .” She turned her face away, “Besides,” she added, “I see nothing wrong with acting according to one’s sexual preferences.”

  “Nor do I,” he said. “Except it distresses Rosa.”

  “Why?”

  “The issue is not that she makes love with Tanya. . . . We are only sacks of skin. I don’t condemn any kind of sexual pleasure, Madame. But your daughter is enraged with men. She hates them. I suffer. I am her husband . . . at least for the moment . . . I suffer, Madame.”

  Eleanor felt dry and hot. “I don’t care who anyone makes love with,” she said, “as long as they are discreet. But why under these conditions are you with Rosa?”

  “The cry of the species.” He let go of her hand and snapped his fingers. “The cry of the species . . . of la belle Isabel.”

  They bumped into a wall, trying to avoid hitting people.

  “You are formidable, Madame. Perhaps you and I should run off to Switzerland or Greece or Australia with Isabel.”

  “I would like to have your baby. I wish I could still bear children,” she whispered, as if in a trance, a waking dream, all controls loosened.

  The music stopped.

  Rosa served the soup, stumbling over purses, shoes, and feet. Tanya caressed Rosa’s wavy hair. “I miss you,” Tanya said.

  “Will you be here tomorrow night?” asked Rosa.

  “I think so,” said Tanya, with a questioning look in Lotte’s direction.

  Rosa walked away. The bowls on the tray trembled in her hands. The softness of Tanya. Like a bony bird covered with silken feathers.

  Antonio had Judith from Los Angeles. In Judith’s hotel room on the Rue de la Huchette he recovered from the wounds that she, Rosa, inflicted. Judith, the American par excellence, with her swollen lips, her flower-soft skin, her enormous dark eyes, glistening hair, and her petulance. Judith would mince no words. Judith would leave thin white silk underpants carelessly heaped on top of her clothing. Judith’s body was like a thirteen year old’s, barely developed, so slender.

  Who else did Antonio fuck the nights he did not come home until dawn? But what other man would put up with her? What Antonio gave her was inhuman, saintly, beyond all reasonable limits.

  Thank God for Tanya. She needed to make love to Tanya. It healed something in her that she could not understand. It healed.

  The saxophone started up again.

  Antonio was pressing himself against her mother’s thighs as they danced, or was she dreaming?

  “STOP IT, ANTONIO!” Rosa cried out, before she was aware of doing so.

  Antonio winked at her. Her mother’s back was to her.

  A little soup spilled from the bowls in her trembling hands. She put the tray down on the floor and rushed up to them.

  “STOP IT! STOP IT!” she screamed, despite everyone around her. Their presence only fueled her anger. Rage took over her controls. She was merely a spectator, sliding down a steep slope into the fissure of an earthquake.

  “STOP IT, ANTONIO!”

  “What is the matter?” asked Eleanor.

  Silence.

  All the guests had stopped talking. A very sad blues was playing that slid into discordant polyphony.

  The music alone softened her rage, hit some chord in her, chastened her, so that somewhere inside she wept over the feelings contained in the music she loved so much.

  “What is it Petite?”

  “You’re dancing so close together,” Rosa said to Antonio, suddenly overwhelmed with embarrassment, aware that they were all staring, all uncomfortable. She wished she’d said nothing. If only she had more control.

  “Hystérique,” said Antonio. “Go talk to Tanya.”

  “I’m in love with you,” Rosa said very low, so that only he could hear her, cheeks burning, choking back tears in her throat. “I’m not in love with her. I’m in love with you. Dance with me.”

  He took her in his arms. “Excuse me, Madame,” he said to her mother. Everyone began talking to each other again. She wondered what the guests had heard of her words.

  Her mother was with Francisco, her face strained and taut and angry. Someone took off the saxophone record. A Strauss waltz played, which made Rosa want to laugh because it sounded so absurd.

  People were eating soup and drinking wine at the table, sprawled out on cushions on the floor or against the bed. Some were outside on the hall landing, and a few were in the baby’s room.

  Antonio’s arms were strong around her. “No more jealousy, Petite,” he hissed, “or I’ll beat the shit out of you.” He lurched from too much drink as he swayed with the rhythm of the waltz. Her mother was talking to Jorge and Francisco. There were loud bursts of laughter prompted by something Francisco said.

  The backs of her calves hit the burning floor heater. She winced in pain. He whirled her towards the kitchen. Then he released her and began serving chicken and rice onto paper plates. He had already sliced the chickens, which stayed warm along with the saffron rice inside the oven.

  Jacques and Philippe argued over a book by André Maurois. Anna flirted with Roland. Elena helped serve.

  “That damned baby takes up so much of her time. I would never want one,” Rosa heard Tanya say to Lotte. “Would you?”

  Isabel, as if to protest, began crying. Rosa went into the front room and changed her diapers. Jorge helped. Then he showed her how to get rid of Isabel’s hiccups by laying her belly down on the palm of his hand and walking until the hiccupping stopped. But the baby started to cry again. Jorge took her from Rosa’s arms, at her request, and tried to soothe her.

  Rosa rushed into the living room. There was no privacy anywhere. She found a scissors in the sewing basket and ran with it to the curtained-off area behind the stove. She stood still for a moment, the shears pointed into her abdomen. She wanted to scream. Slash herself. A small mirror was propped up inside the shower stall. Tears stung her eyes. She began cutting her hair, which hung loose over her shoulders. She watched the black locks fall over her beige sweater onto the floor, over the drain-pipe. She didn’t stop until her hair had been snipped off all around, just beneath her ears.

  She returned to the main room. People grew quiet.

  “Whatever have you done?” cried Eleanor.

  “Cut my hair.”

  “Why?” asked Anna.

  Antonio ran his fingers through her shorn hair. “Loca.”

  “I like it,” said Tanya.

  “Comme elle est mignonne,” said Elena.

  “It’s uneven,” said Anna. “If you bring me a scissors, I’ll even it out for you.”

  Rosa got the scissors from the shower.

  Meanwhile Antonio put Gershwin on the stereo. People began dancing again, while Anna carefully snipped at her hair. Strands clung to Rosa’s sweater.

  “You wanted attention,” murmured Anna.

  “No,” said Rosa. “I don’t know what made me do it.”

  Jorge took a lavender chiffon dress out of the closet. He danced around the room, holding it in front of him in rhythm to “Summertime,” and he rolled his hips langourously in imitation of a woman.

  Summertime

  and the livin’ is easy

  Fish are ju
mpin’

  And the cotton is high

  Oh your Daddy’s rich

  And your Ma is good lookin’

  So hush little baby

  Don’t you cry.

  Antonio roared with laughter.

  “Put it on,” said Antonio. “Let him use your makeup, Rosa.”

  Rosa nodded her assent. Antonio took out her makeup box, an old cookie tin, from the bottom of the closet and handed it to Jorge, whose face gleamed with excitement.

  Anna finished snipping. “There,” she said. “Look at yourself.”

  Rosa went into the front room where the full-length mirror was. Her face, with the hair so short, looked ungainly, like a raw calf’s.

  “You look all right,” said Anna, who followed her. Anna with her smooth white skin, her glossy hair, her kind smile. “When it grows just a little, it will look even better.”

  People were starting to leave. Eleanor shook everyone’s hand as they left and told them how much she enjoyed meeting them. Rosa was amazed at her mother’s composure. In the midst of a blitz, of bombings, she would smile and shake their hands. Her mother was straining to maintain some human bridge between them all.

  When only Tanya, Lotte, Françoise, Judith, and Jean were left, Jorge came out from the shower stall. He had put on Rosa’s dress. Through the sheer layers of chiffon, one could see the outlines of his jockey shorts and undershirt.

  “He needs a petticoat,” said Antonio.

  Jorge had applied lipstick, eye shadow, mascara, eye liner, and rouge. The rose-tinted eye shadow made his eyes appear even larger.

  “He needs a wig,” said Tanya.

  Lotte giggled into Tanya’s angora-covered shoulder, then turned her large eyes on Antonio.

  Jorge danced again.

  “He could use some of Rosa’s hair,” said Jean. He snapped a photo of Jorge, and his flashbulb blinded them all for an instant.

  Then Antonio was putting on his raincoat. He took Judith by the hand and led her towards the door. Judith was wearing a jacket of white rabbit fur over a dark pants outfit.

  “Where are you going?” asked Rosa.

  Antonio didn’t answer.

  The door shut with finality.

  It was not Judith whom Rosa feared. She pictured him walking Judith to her hotel, saying goodbye to her with gallantry, perhaps not even bothering to make love. (He could barely stand; he tottered as he walked; he had drunk far too much to be any good in bed.) Rosa pictured him taking a taxi to the Gare de Lyon. Perhaps he had enough money on him for fare to Barcelona, Munich, or Rome. He spoke some German and Italian. Perhaps he would never return.

  Her instinct seldom failed her. Had it not led her to safety in time for Isabel’s birth, barely in time, but in time?

  Instinct.

  He won’t ever return unless I ask him to. He won’t ever return unless I surprise him in the act of flight.

  Time seemed to slow down. Everything seemed to be happening very slowly. The electric lights took on a dimmer hue. Her mother seemed forlorn, lost.

  Poor Jorge in that ridiculous dress. How futile to try to be what you weren’t. How ridiculous she herself was.

  Francisco said, “Will you dance with me, Rosa? We’ll put on more music.”

  She shook her head.

  “Mother,” she said, turning to Eleanor, who stood somewhat apart. “I’ve got to find Antonio. Mother, come with us. Tanya, you come too,” she begged. “Come with me, all of you. Francisco, Jorge, Lotte.”

  “You’re too anxious,” Lotte muttered.

  They seemed bemused, as if they were bewitched, compelled to follow her, crazy as she was. They put on their coats. “Brush your hair,” said Francisco. “You want Antonio to be proud of your looks.” He buttoned up her coat—she had done it unevenly. She had an impulse to lean forward and kiss him, but she was afraid of touching the small, red wartlike growth on Francisco’s cheek, as if it could infect her.

  “Come on. Let’s go,” she said.

  Let them think I’m crazy. It doesn’t matter. Only Antonio matters. I’ve got to find him right now.

  Yellow light around her. Yellow light connected her to him, to the filaments in his brain that glowed golden in depthless black.

  “What about Isabel?” asked her mother.

  “She’s all right. She’s sleeping. Come on.”

  Rosa led them into three cafés. In the third she found him at a corner table. The café was crowded. Followed by the others, Rosa ploughed through people and rushed up to him. “Antonio!” she cried. “I wanted to join you.”

  He glanced at Judith and the others, smiled, pulled out a chair for Eleanor. “Madame, sit down.” Then he beckoned to the waiter. “Please take my friends’ orders, and find them some chairs if you can.”

  “Don’t leave me! Don’t ever leave me!” she cried, flinging her arms around his neck, and her despair wound up around his throat, wound around his chest, his abdomen, and groin.

  He pulled her hands down to his chest, holding them there. “Don’t leave me!” he mimicked. He roared with laughter and pounded on the table. “Bruja!” he shouted. He gave her his glass of beer to drink from. Her need of him—so enormous that she would abase herself like this in front of others—anchored him.

  Judith looked at them with puzzled eyes.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Eleanor left for the United States.

  A week after she left, Rosa was making up the bed on a cold grey morning. She wore slippers and was barelegged beneath her woolen skirt. Antonio sipped at a glass of wine. He had begun drinking early in the day.

  “With Tanya I see what your true nature is,” he said.

  “That again? You’re the one who introduced us.”

  “You prefer women. That’s a fact.”

  “I’m not a lesbian. I don’t prefer women! It’s not true. I’m hooked on you. Don’t you see? I’m not hooked on Tanya at all. It’s something I have to go through. Don’t you see?”

  He ground out the end of his cigarette and lit another. “Why do you think I see Judith? I need a woman who responds to me.”

  “I’m not a lesbian,” she repeated, nearly in tears.

  The baby began to whimper.

  “Isabel picks up whatever you’re feeling.”

  “She hears us fighting,” said Rosa. “Why do you torment me like this? You introduced me to Tanya. You wanted me to go to bed with her.”

  “I helped you discover who you are.”

  “Antonio, I love you,” she said in desperation. He was so unfair. First he posed as her savior, and then he persecuted her. First he gave her permission to do something she secretly longed to; he urged her on; then he tortured her for doing it.

  “Antonio, I can’t stand it!” she said, going to the baby’s room.

  “I don’t understand you at all!”

  As soon as Rosa picked up Isabel from her crib, her whimpers stopped. Rosa held her close. So warm and soft. Fine golden hair. The delicate smell of her. She didn’t need to be changed yet.

  “Because of you I have no friends,” Antonio raged. “No one will give me a job in Paris. ‘Poor Antonio,’ they say, ‘with his crazy wife who chops off her hair. What a fool he is to stay with her.’ Do you know they tell me to leave you?” He came close. His blue-grey eyes burned into her. “Jean suggested I leave. So did Philippe . . . as for Anna, she’d love to have me all to herself as her particular bonbon.”

  The water was boiling on the stove. She shifted Isabel in her arms, turned off the water, and spooned tea leaves into the teapot. Some of the leaves spilled on the floor.

  “Clumsy!” he shouted. “Imbécile.”

  The baby began crying again. Rosa laid her down on the red quilt that covered their bed and rubbed her belly. She wriggled like a fish. Then Rosa sat down and shifted Isabel onto her lap. She felt the soft spot in the middle of her skull. So delicate. So easily injured, brain damaged, or killed. Antonio’s voice echoed inside her brain. If she were to slip and fall while
she was holding Isabel. . . . Oh it was terrifying to be responsible for this tiny creature who was so vulnerable and so helpless and so entirely dependent.

  Shuddering, she laid the baby down on the quilt again. She was walking to the kitchen to pour the tea when Antonio hurled his glass at her. It shattered around her feet.

  At that moment there was a loud knocking on the door. She heard Francisco’s and Jorge’s voices. Her left ankle was bleeding from a fragment of glass that had embedded itself. Hastily she removed the fragment, washed her ankle with a rag, and then wrapped a clean diaper tightly around the wound.

  The two Chileans came in with a loud display of apparent affection. “Good afternoon!” shouted Francisco. He hugged her. “How lovely you look today,” Then surveying her at arms’ length, “Even your hair has grown out just enough to suit your face.”

  “What happened to your ankle?” asked Jorge

  “Antonio threw a glass.”

  They all looked down at the pieces that still remained on the floor. Rosa began to sweep them up with a broom.

  “Oh Antonio,” scolded Jorge. “That’s no way to act.”

  Thank God for these old friends of Antonio’s! They visited almost daily.

  The two of them had lived in Europe for many years, sustained by a monthly allowance from Francisco’s family. Recently the stipends stopped because he had in some unknown way incurred his family’s anger. Antonio had been supplying them with food and drink in exchange for their companionship.

  She shook the dustpan into the garbage can and sponged off the floor with a wet rag to get the tiny invisible pieces.

  Antonio threw Isabel above his head and caught her. Then he threw her up again.

  “Be careful!” cried Jorge.

  A grin lit up Antonio’s face. He looked more handsome. “I’m teaching her not to be afraid of heights.”

  They watched intently. Francisco and Jorge were each poised to catch the baby, who gurgled and gasped a bit. Then Antonio whirled her around, holding her tightly until he grew dizzy.

  “It’s because of her that I stay with Rosa,” he said. “Isabel is powerful. She’s so small, and yet how powerful she is.” He laid her down on the quilt. Isabel started to squall with a long steady sound. Poking her in the stomach, he said, “She’s enormously strong. She’ll be a matriarch. As soon as I talk about leaving you, Rosa, she understands.”